An important aspect of mental well-being is the ability to quiet your mind, to, in a sense, escape from the constant bombardment of data, images, thoughts, sights and stressors which make up our daily lives. To be able to quiet your mind is no easy task and takes time and practice.

It requires commitment, patience and a few minutes of your time on a regular basis to make a life change rather than just forcing yourself into something for short-term benefits. The same holds true with your mind. You want to reduce or eliminate your troubled thoughts, anxiety, negative attitudes and poor outlook from now on, not just temporary relief.

In the last article I talked about giving yourself positive feedback first thing when you wake up about how your day will go and doing away with all the negative feedback we are used to giving ourselves. The next step is something that many people have never attempted or know about other than hearing it mentioned casually.

Meditation is a very good way to help quiet your mind. This is much more beneficial to your general well-being than you know. There are many different aspects of meditation and how you do it to achieve what you want for your end result. The Internet holds a lot of information on it and there are a lot of books available. I am going to give you one aspect to start with and you can branch out from there.

For many people doing their meditation first thing in the morning is best before they get too much on their minds from the day, especially if they are new at the process.

Remember this is just the starting point and you can just start with five minutes a day. The environment needs to be as quiet as possible, wear loose fitting clothing such as pajamas and get in a comfortable sitting position. Focus on relaxing any part of your body that you feel is tight. It may help is you start at your feet and progressively relax all your muscles consciously and finishing up with your face. Now focus on your breathing, controlling each breath to flow slowly out, hold for a second, then back in. See yourself sitting there, bathed in a warm glowing light, slowly breathing out and in.

Embrace the feeling of warmth and relaxation. Keep that mental picture as you focus on slow, even breaths. Do this until very relaxed then try clearing your mind of any thoughts. This is extremely difficult and usually lasts only for a second or two when you first start but that is a very important first step. Remember that relaxed feeling throughout the day any time you feel stressed or angry, even if you just get away for two minutes to remember that peaceful state to help you remove that feeling.

In the next article we will add auto suggestion to the relaxed state of mind.